PAA Director Kelly McKeague (far left) poses for a photo with Vietnamese Ambassador to the US Nguyen Quoc Dung (second from right) at a war remembrance handover ceremony in Washington DC on July 15, 2025. VNA/VNS Photo

WASHINGTON - Director of the US Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) Kelly McKeague has written an article published in The Washington Times, highlighting the cooperation and support of the Vietnamese government and people in the humanitarian effort to search for US military personnel missing from the war.

The US remains steadfastly committed to providing the "fullest possible" accounting for the missing soldiers over the past 40 years, McKeague said, affirming that this humanitarian effort has been sustained because of the longstanding cooperation of the Vietnamese government.

"Collaboration began a decade before the re-establishment of formal diplomatic relations and continues to be a fundamental building block to today’s strong partnership that the two countries have forged," he wrote.

He noted that because of this enduring and essential cooperation, the US accounted for 752 Americans missing in Việt Nam from the war, bringing their remains home to their families, providing long-sought answers and some semblance of closure.

For the 1,157 estimated to be recoverable in Việt Nam, the US can fulfil its moral responsibility to find them because of the archival research and field investigations and excavations jointly conducted with Việt Nam, the officer asserted.

According to McKeague, the DPAA has deployed more than 97 investigation teams and 167 recovery teams to Việt Nam to work alongside its Vietnamese partner since 2015.

Even during the 2020-2021 travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Việt Nam conducted 30 independent investigations and recoveries. The required funding for this noble work provides for aviation support to access remote locations, construction of base camps in those locations, thorough sweeps for unexploded ordnance, hiring of a local labour force large enough to effectively excavate the site, land restoration and specialised excavation equipment for complex sites.

Over the last 10 years, US-Việt Nam collaboration has led to the identification of 35 missing personnel, 19 from joint field work, one from a US partner mission, and 15 from Vietnamese sources.

"They and the many who remain unaccounted for are not just numbers nor can their supreme sacrifice be monetised," he said.

Accordingly, it is the US’s solemn and sacred obligation to sustain the extraordinary efforts to search for, recover, and identify them, most of which occurs due to the support of the Vietnamese government and its people, he emphasised. VNA/VNS